other
countries. But for the absolute confidence that all men have in the
fidelity and conscientiousness of the present Pope, and for the
providential circumstance that there is no ecclesiastical complication
which the French Government could use for its own ends, it would not be
tolerated by the rest of the Catholic world. Sooner or later these
conditions of security will disappear, and the interest of the Church
demands that before that happens, the peril should be averted, even by a
catastrophe.

The hostility of the Italians themselves to the Holy See is the tragic
symptom of the present malady. In other ages, when it was assailed, the
Italians were on its side, or at least were neutral. Now they require
the destruction of the temporal power, either as a necessary sacrifice
for the unity and greatness of their country, or as a just consequence
of incurable defects. The time will come, however, when they will be
reconciled with the Papacy, and with its presence as a Power among them.
It was the dependence of the Pope on the Austrian arms, and his
identification in popular opinion with the cause of the detested
foreigner, that obscured his lofty position as the moral bulwark and
protector of the nation. For 1500 years the Holy See was the pivot of
Italian history, and the source of the Italian influence in Europe. The
nation and the See shared the same fortunes, and grew powerful or feeble
together. It was not until the vices of Alexander VI. and his
predecessors had destroyed the reverence which was the protection of
Italy, that she became the prey of the invaders. None of the great
Italian historians has failed to see that they would ruin themselves in
raising their hands against Rome. The old prophecy of the _Papa
Angelico_, of an Angel Pope, who was to rise up to put an end to discord
and disorder, and to restore piety and peace and happiness in Italy, was
but the significant token of the popular belief that the Papacy and the
nation were bound up together, and that one was the guardian of the
other. That belief slumbers, now that the idea of unity prevails, whilst
the Italians are attempting to put the roof on a building without walls
and without foundations, but it will revive again, when centralisation
is compelled to yield to federalism, and the road to the practicable has
been found in the search after impossibilities.

The tyrannical character of the Piedmontese Government, its contempt for
the sanctity o